"The Greatest Gift", especially the Berserker section at the end, is amazing. "THE DRUMS MAN, THE FUCKING DRUMS!!!" People get kinda freaked out when they hear them for the first time, which is a sign of a great band, in my opinion. Yeah, I like Scratch Acid.

A good friend will come bail you out of jail...but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn, we fucked up."

The Big Boys, a fat and popular Austin punk rock party band, asked Rey Washam to be their drummer, and he left Scratch Acid. He made several records and toured extensively with the Big Boys, helping to establish them nationally. Left-handed, handsomely Jewish Rich Malley (from Kamikaze Refrigerators) replaced Washam for a spell, until the Big Boys called it quits and Rey was free to rejoin. This version of the band was to be permanent, and began its recording career with a terrible version of "Greatest Gift" for Matako Mazuri's Metal Moo Cow sampler album.

So yeah, from this I gather that they were without Rey for a bit, but all of their recorded output is total Rey (during his second stint).[/i]

Great, great, great band. A large percentage of The Greatest Gift is absolutely flawless; something like the first fourteen tracks on there are all perfect. Crazy. Put those first fourteen tracks together with "Amicus" and "Cheese Plug" and you'd have one 16-track album with every second equalling postpunk perfection that lasted 45 minutes exactly. Not a second over 45 minutes, I checked.

I'm not as sold on the Berserker EP as many of the other people on here seem to be; the material on the earlier stuff just feels stronger. Still fantastic, though.

Anyone know where they got the bell-ringing sound on "Unlike A Baptist" from?

I always felt like Scratch Acid finished what the Birthday Party started, they perfected it. That may be grossly understating the achievements and originality of this band but in my little peanut brain I cannot think of one without the other.

I believe Lori Barbero and I are partly responsible for breaking up Scratch Acid. Suffice to say brett, Lori and I had a lot of fun before a show - so much so that Brett went nuts and started a fist-fight with Rey that ended up with Rey's kit kicked-in silly. I believe they didn't play another show after that until the reunion. Maybe a few shows after, a very few. It was a pretty fucked up show. Uptown Bar in Minneapolis. Must have been 85-86? Can't remember. Brett lost his mind. He was talking nonsense. It was really fucked up.